UCLA Political Science

American Politics Workshop with Jessica Trounstine
2018-01-29 00:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
American Politics Workshop with Jessica Trounstine
DateJanuary 26, 2015
Time3:00pm to 4:30pm
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
Contact Information
Belinda SunnuPhone bsunnu@polisci.ucla.edu
Presenter:Jessica Trounstine, UC MercedTitle: “In it Together: The Segregation of Public Goods”Abstract:Research has made clear that among the major contributors to persistent inequality are the shackles (and privileges) that residential location bestows. The neighborhood and city in which one lives determine access to quality housing, employment, and networks; and they determine access to a range of public goods, such as effective police protection, strong public schools, clean parks, reliable sewer and water systems, and even public health. Because America remains a highly segregated nation, the quality of public benefits experienced by racial and ethnic minorities is vastly poorer that the quality of benefits experienced by whites. Residential segregation allows governments to disinvest in minority communities and produces segregation in access to public goods. In this presentation I explore some of the political consequences of racial segregation and discuss the ways in which distributional politics contribute to residential isolation in metropolitan regions.Paper:Click here to download.
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REP Workshop - Janelle Wong
2018-01-26 00:00
REP Workshop – Janelle Wong
DateJanuary 22, 2016
Time4:00pm to 6:00pm
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
Together, Asian American and Latino evangelicals constitute a growing proportion of evangelicals in the United States. Their numbers are surely going to increase as new immigrants enter the United States from Asia and Latin America and the number of White evangelicals remains steady or even falls. But the extent and nature of the effects of evangelical identity on the political attitudes of growing numbers of Latinos and Asian Americans have not been studied systematically. This paper aims to fill that gap by comparing the effects of evangelical identity on political attitudes across a range of groups to better address the conditional effects of religious identity on political orientations in an increasingly diverse context. The primary research question driving the study is does born-again identity play a consistent role across racial groups in determining political attitudes?
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DSS - Sarah Anzia, UC Berkeley
2018-01-25 00:00
DSS – Sarah Anzia, UC Berkeley
DateJanuary 19, 2017
Time12:30pm to 2:00pm
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
Abstract:A subversive line of new scholarship in American politics argues that interest groups need to be brought to the analytic center of the field once again. This paper attempts to further that agenda. We reconnect with an older literature of great importance—on capture, subgovernments, and interest group liberalism—to study interest groups as insiders that play routine, officially recognized roles as part of government itself. Our empirical focus is on state-run public pension boards: which control trillions of dollars, have vast fiscal and social consequences, and are commonly designed to give public employees and their unions official roles in governing their own pension systems. We develop a theory arguing—contrary to existing scholarly work—that these groups can actually be expected to favor policies that undermine the fiscal integrity of these plans. Through an analysis of key decisions by 109 pension boards over the period 2001-2014, we show that this is in fact the case—and that, for public-sector pensions, these “interest groups on the inside” have genuine influence that weakens effective government.Full paper can be found here
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Marschak Colloquium with Mark Turner
2018-01-25 00:00
Marschak Colloquium with Mark Turner
DateJanuary 22, 2015
Time3:00pm to 4:30pm
Location
Contact
Contact Information
lohmann@ucla.edu
Presenter:Mark Turner, Institute Professor and Professor of Cognitive Science, Case Western Reserve UniversityHost:Francis Steen, Associate Professor of Communication Studies, UCLATitle: “The Origin of Ideas: Blending, Creativity, and the Human Spark”Abstract:Other species have abilities we do not they can fly, spin webs, photosynthesize. But human beings are the heavyweight champions of extremely rapid creativity. We are the origin of ideas. We invent and disseminate new ideas constantly, often ideas that range across vast expanses of time, space, causation, and agency expanses that go far beyond human scale and that leave other species in the dust. Why are we so innovative? How can our little brains hold onto new ideas once they are formed? Professor Turner explores the ways in which advanced human cognition, often profoundly conservative, is remarkable for its ability to blend old ideas to make new ones, with emergent meaning arising in the blend. Advanced blending, a basic mental operation for human beings, is a constant, everyday mental activity, not costly and not reserved for special effects, even though it is almost entirely unnoticed. It appears to operate according to uniform principles and under uniform constraints, underlying mathematical insight, scientific discovery, advanced social cognition, art, music, religion, fashion, decision-making, grammar, and the rest of the performances that distinguish cognitively modern human beings.Professor Turner is the author of The Origin of Ideas (2014), The Artful Mind (2004), Cognitive Dimensions of Social Science (2001), and a many other books and articles. He is Founding Director of the Cognitive Science Network; Co-Director of the Distributed Little Red Hen Lab; winner of the Prix du Rayonnement de la langue et de la litterature francaises from the French Academy; Founding President of the Myrifield Institute for Cognition and the Arts; Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study, the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, the National Humanities Center, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Institute of Advanced Study at Durham University, the Centre for Advanced Study at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Institute for the Science of Origins; Extraordinary Member of the Humanwissenschaftliches Zentrum der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat; and External Research Professor of the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study.
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REP Workshop with Monica Varsanyi
2018-01-25 00:00
REP Workshop with Monica Varsanyi
DateJanuary 22, 2015
Time12:00pm
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
Contact Information
Belinda SunnuPhone bsunnu@polisci.ucla.edu
Race, Ethnicity, and Politics WorkshopPresenter:Monica W. Varsanyi, CUNY Graduate CenterTitle: “Divergent States: Explaining Immigration Policy Trajectories in New Mexico and Arizona”About the Speaker:Varsanyi is Associate Professor of Political Science at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York (CUNY), and a member of the faculty in Geography at the CUNY Graduate Center. Her research addresses the politics of unauthorized (or ‘illegal’) immigration in the United States, specifically the growing tensions between local, state, and federal governments over immigration policy and enforcement. Her teaching interests include urban politics, immigration law and policy, and research design and methods. She is currently working on two related projects: one that explores growing tensions between local and state grassroots immigration policy activism and the U.S. federal government’s plenary power over immigration; and second, a project that explores the expanding involvement of city police in immigration enforcement and the impact this is having on the relationship between local police and (unauthorized) immigrant communities.
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Anthony Fowler, University of Chicago
2018-01-23 00:00
Anthony Fowler, University of Chicago
DateJanuary 17, 2017
Time12:30pm to 2:00pm
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
The talk will be based on two papers, available here and here. Abstract:Congressional committees are thought to play a central role in policymaking and the distribution of federal spending, and seats on important committees such as Appropriations or Ways and Means are highly coveted. Political scientists have extensively studied and hypothesized about the importance of committee positions, but surprisingly, committee chairs have received notably less attention. Results from two papers suggest that the focus of congressional scholars appears to be misplaced. Rank-and-file committee positions generally have little impact on the influence and power of members of congress, while committee chairs are more important than previously thought.
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PT Workshop - William Stahl, UCLA
2018-01-19 00:00
PT Workshop – William Stahl, UCLA
DateJanuary 13, 2017
Time4:00pm to 6:00pm
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
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Juliet Williams
2018-01-19 00:00
Juliet Williams
DateJanuary 15, 2016
Time4:00pm to 6:00pm
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
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Jessica Stanton, University of Pennsylvania
2018-01-18 00:00
Jessica Stanton, University of Pennsylvania
DateJanuary 12, 2017
Time12:30pm to 2:00pm
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
Abstract:Do rebel group violations of international humanitarian law during civil war – in particular, attacks on noncombatant civilians – affect conflict outcomes? I argue that in the post-Cold War era, rebel groups who do not target civilians have been able to use the framework of international human rights and humanitarian law to appeal for diplomatic support from Western governments and intergovernmental organizations. However, rebel group appeals for international diplomatic support are most likely to be effective when the rebel group can contrast its own respect for civilian immunity with the government’s abuses. Rebel groups that do not target civilians in the face of government abuses, therefore, are likely to be able to translate increased international diplomatic support into more favorable conflict outcomes. Using original cross-national data on rebel group violence against civilians in all civil wars from 1989 to 2010, the findings show that rebel groups that exercise restraint toward civilians in the face of government violence are more likely to secure favorable conflict outcomes. In addition, I probe the causal mechanism linking rebel group behavior to conflict outcomes, showing that when a rebel group behaves well in comparison to its government opponent, Western governments and intergovernmental organizations are more likely to take coercive diplomatic action against the government. The evidence suggests that rebel groups can translate this increased diplomatic support into favorable conflict outcomes.Full paper can be found here
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Immigrant/Native Born Contact, Trust and Civic Engagement
2018-01-18 00:00
Immigrant/Native Born Contact, Trust and Civic Engagement
DateJanuary 14, 2016
Time12:30pm to 2:00pm
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
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Saad Gulzar, New York University
2018-01-17 00:00
Saad Gulzar, New York University
DateJanuary 11, 2017
Time12:30pm to 2:00pm
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
Abstract:What motivates people to seek political office? What role does the social context play in the candidacy decision? In a field experiment, we increase the salience of personal reasons for running for political office – such as gaining respect and status – or social reasons for running – such as the ability to help others. We do this by making appeals to a random subset of the community in one-on-one private meetings or in village-level public meetings. Our results show that, first, making any appeal to run greatly increases the probability of candidacy. Second, compared to a neutral private or public meeting, where personal or social reasons are not mentioned, highlighting social reasons to run increases candidacy, while making personal reasons salient reduces candidacy. Significantly, these effects are only observed when appeals are made in a public meeting, leading to the conclusion that the social dimensions of the candidacy decision are particularly important.Full paper can be found here
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Sissa: Gendered Politics Conference
2018-01-17 00:00
Sissa: Gendered Politics Conference
DateJanuary 13, 2016
Time8:00am to 5:00pm
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
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Political Cultures, Erotic Cultures - Gendered Politics In Ancient Societies
2018-01-15 00:00 - 2018-01-17 00:00
Political Cultures, Erotic Cultures – Gendered Politics In Ancient Societies
DateJanuary 11, 2016 to January 13, 2016
Time2:00pm to 5:00pm
Location
Monday, January 112:00 — 5:00Classics Seminar RoomDodd Hall 248Tuesday, January 1210:00 — 5:00Center for Medieval and Renaissance StudiesRoyce Hall 306Wednesday, January 1310:00 — 5:00Political Science Conference RoomBunche Hall 4357
Contact
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Campaigning Online: Web Display Ads in the 2012 Presidential Campaign
2018-01-15 00:00
Campaigning Online: Web Display Ads in the 2012 Presidential Campaign
DateJanuary 13, 2014
Time4:00am to 5:30am
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
Although much of what we know about political advertising comes from the study of television advertising alone, online advertising is an increasingly prominent part of political campaigning. Research on other online political communication—especially candidate websites, blogs, and social media—tends to conclude that these communications are primarily aimed at turning existing supporters into campaign donors, activists, and volunteers. Is a similar communication strategy found in online display ads—the ads seen adjacent to website content? We examine 840 unique online display ads from the 2012 presidential campaign to explore the nature, content, and targets of online display advertising. We show that the policy content, tone, ad location, and interactive elements of the ads varied based on the audience, with persuasive appeals aimed at undecided or persuadable voters and engagement appeals aimed at existing supporters. Comparing ad content across candidates also finds that each side focused on those issues for which the candidate had a strategic advantage. As a consequence, we find little issue engagement in online advertising, in contrast to the conclusions of previous research on television advertising.
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Marschak Colloquium with Melissa Schwartzberg
2018-01-11 00:00
Marschak Colloquium with Melissa Schwartzberg
DateJanuary 8, 2015
Time3:00pm
Location
Young Research Library, Conference Room 11360
Contact
Contact Information
lohmann@ucla.edu
Presenter:Melissa Schwartzberg, New York University PoliticsHost:Giulia Sissa, UCLA Political Science & ClassicsTitle: “Counting the Many: The Origins and Limits of Supermajority Rule”Abstract:Supermajority rules govern many features of our lives in common: from the selection of textbooks for our children’s schools to residential covenants, from the policy choices of state and federal legislatures to constitutional amendments. It is usually assumed that these rules are not only normatively unproblematic, but necessary to achieve the goals of institutional stability, consensus, and minority protections. Professor Schwartzberg challenges the logic underlying the use of supermajority rule as an alternative to majority decision-making. She traces the hidden history of supermajority decision-making, which originally emerged as an alternative to unanimity rule, and highlights the tensions in the contemporary use of supermajority rules as an alternative to majority rule. Although supermajority rules ostensibly aim to reduce the purported risks associated with majority decision-making, they do so at the cost of introducing new liabilities associated with the biased judgments they generate and secure.The Jacob Marschak Interdisciplinary Colloquium on Mathematics in the Behavioral Sciences at UCLA.
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How I Learned to Embrace Anger and Love the Bomb
2018-01-10 00:00
How I Learned to Embrace Anger and Love the Bomb
DateJanuary 8, 2014
Time7:00am to 9:30am
Location
11377 Bunche Hall
Contact
Aggression constitutes an essential element in a great deal of violence. We seek to examine how dispositional aggression influences attitudes toward foreign policy. Secondarily, we also provide some analysis that interrogates the etiology of aggression. Recent work has begun to examine whether the tendency to engage in physical aggression might have some roots in genetic traits. In combination with particular environmental variables, certain heritable characteristics appear to predispose certain individuals to a higher risk of responding aggressively to threat. We present results which include an analysis for the effects of sex, education, and parental and partner bonding on aggression. In addition, we undertake a sociological and genetic analysis of traits related to aggression in a large population of Australians, and their examine effects on attitudes toward foreign policy and moral dilemmas. Integrating genetic and environmental factors to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the effect of aggression on political attitudes and moral values uncovers new possibilities for interventions designed to ameliorate the effects of violence on society.
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Fall Quarter begins/Instruction begins – Monday
2018-01-08 00:00
Fall Quarter begins/Instruction begins – Monday
DateJanuary 5, 2015
Time6:00am
Location
Contact
Fall Quarter begins/Instruction begins – Monday
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Evangelical Reform and the Origins of the Modern Constitutional Order
2018-01-08 00:00
Evangelical Reform and the Origins of the Modern Constitutional Order
DateJanuary 6, 2014
Time4:00am to 5:30am
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
In twenty-first century America, religion seems to go hand in hand with veneration of the Constitution and its framers. But during the nineteenth century, deeply religious Americans were almost as likely to condemn the Constitution as to praise it. Why did early religious activists often express disdain for a constitutional inheritance that their twenty-first-century successors regard with awed reverence? The answer, in short, is that Americans living in the aftermath of the great religious revivals of the early nineteenth century came to regard as sinful many activities and forms of property – from liquor, to lottery tickets, to slavery – that the founding generation had tolerated, or even actively promoted. In order to rid the nation of sinful forms of property, evangelicals found it necessary to challenge some of the framers’ most basic constitutional principles, from their expansive conception of property rights to their commitment to decentralized regulatory authority. Evangelical reform efforts thus helped facilitate the birth of a new constitutional order in which conceptions of property rights and state-federal relations are increasingly viewed as fluid, socially constructed, and subject to modification by democratic majorities. In short, the “living Constitution” which modern-day social conservatives routinely disparage was in no small part the creation of an earlier generation of religious activists.
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